The title of this book cracked me up… I’m Happy For You (Sort of…Not Really): Finding Contentment in a Culture of Comparison.  Funny, right? Author Kay Wills Wyma takes on our constant need to compare ourselves and how this holds us back.

From the Publisher:

Do you find yourself measuring your value against your friend’s house, body, marriage, resume, paycheck, organic garden, or Pinterest-worthy holiday décor, and coming up lacking? Do your college roommate’s Instagram snapshots bear little resemblance to the scene at your house this morning?

Excessive comparison and competition sap our energy and steal our joy. Our friends become our audience and judges, and our kids become part of our brand. Add social media’s constant invitation to post and peruse, and it’s no wonder that we’re left exhausted, discontent, and lonely. Thankfully, there is another way!

With  refreshing candor and humor, Kay Wyma shares her experiences with comparison living and offers readers the simple remedies that helped her and her family reboot their perspective and discover freedom, authenticity, and joy.

Review: 

When this book is good, it is really, really good. For example, this: “We can silence comparison when we learn to recognize its insidious invitation to self-obsession. Because really, that’s what comparison does: it make like all about me, how I measure up or fall short.”

The think I found strange about this book, though, is the way the author over-corrects. On the one hand, she claims to be the most inept wife/mother in history. Yet on the other she makes sure we know she used to be on the advance team for the Vice President, in a longish anecdote that’s not related to anything else in the book.  I can’t decide if I wish she’d had more editorial help to smooth over some of this awkwardness, or if I benefit as a reader from seeing that the author is just as much in process with this as the rest of us. Probably the latter.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.